The Beginning of Something
by Rowna Seria
Summary: A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about... writer's block? In a desperate search to rediscover her creativity an author looks through what she'd previously writen, trying to find even the tiniest thread of insperation.


shbeginningofsomething1.doc

The air outside was thick with damp and the street lamps flickered dully through the haze. It was a cool autumn night, it had been cloudy and damp all day, and there had been a light fog that did not lift until well in the afternoon which descended again at nightfall. It was late enough that the only passerby on the street were drunks making their way home; some of them considerably inebriated, some of them supported by other, less drunk, comrades who saw it fit to see their friend home. I myself stood beneath a specific lamp on a specific street, waiting, carefully judging every pedestrian to cross my path searching for signs that identified them as something out of the ordinary. At the other end of the street light still flicked out of a few windows, faintly; but, at my end the only illumination came from the lamps, the dark windows staring like black eyes at the back of my head. Sheltered in a pool of lamplight, it was almost more difficult to see because the moisture in the air was more visible than it was in the shadows. Though, in a childish way, I felt more secure in the faint light, the shadows themselves sinister and foreboding spies.

With this setting it was not so surprising that I nearly jumped out of me skin and strangled a shout into a squeak when a hand landed on my shoulder from behind.

"At ease Watson, all goes well. Soon we will have him."

I looked over to find what appeared to be a ruffian of sorts, scruffy and unkempt, but where I did not quite recognize the exterior, I knew well the voice of my good friend Sherlock Holmes, and his eyes sparkled back at me, thrilled with the hunt.

"We have only to wait until our man comes to meet us. I trust you know your part," he whispered to me.

"I should hope so."

"And your revolver?"

In answer I patted my hip pocket, which contained the item in question.

"Good. If I am not mistaken, here comes our now."

I looked off in the direction of his gaze and saw a man with a pronounced limp coming our direction from the far side of the street. He kept his head bent down, eyes hidden beneath a cap. He was not much in height, but he made up for it in width. Broad, powerful shoulders pulled his jacket taught across his back, even his stooped form could not hide his strength, and hiding it he was. The limp and slouch of his body was all farce, for I had seen him only few days before, more fit than many other men I've seen.

000

The young woman, or half-adult, since she was 18 (one doesn't really have full rights until age 21), who would never normal refer to herself as a "young woman," leaned back and stretched after re-reading the chunk of writing... again. Just a moment before, she had thought to herself, _I would like to write something_, so she went to look back at this story, since it had seemed to be going good before. But now, blank, blank and blank, was all that came to mind.

Still in the mood to write, but not to start all over from the beginning _again_, She looked back through the other stories she had begun on her computer, looking for at least one that would _maybe_ pique her interest.

Deciding she was rather in the mood to expand upon some of her Sherlock Holmes fan fiction, she looked through those stories.

The first document on topic was called sh-.doc. "sh" was her common notation for a Holmes fan-fic, but the dash? Even she raised an eyebrow at that, and she was the one who put it there! The story was rather a mix of random overly-emotional rant written on a moment's notice in an unspecified point of view, kind of in a warped view of Holmes, obviously based of off something the author had just felt inclined to write. We will categorize the POV as Holmes/Author, because, really, it was a mix of the two. After that came a little poem of sorts:

Where have the children gone?

They used to play all day there,

But now they cannot be found.

Interesting, but not particularly useful. She started at the poem for a while, going over it her head, but though it had potential inspiration, the young woman wasn't feeling particularly inspired...

Well, onto the next document! It was called shfailroma.doc. Ah, now wasn't this a piece! It was going to be a story partially based off of real life experiences and adapted to the Holmes-ian world! However, right now, it was just a list of titles, chapter titles to be exact, to mark out the basic outline of the story. And the rather endearing title (though not quite) was _A Failed Romance_. Well, the author didn't really feel like writing about it. After all, it was based on her apathy towards someone, and she wasn't really in the mood to re-construct that apathy all over again! Besides, she wasn't feeling to antagonistic about "Holmes ending up happily ever after with some random tart" stories at this time, and since the story was more a reaction to such stories, the will behind the action was lacking. In other words: she was bored with it. Besides, she already knew what was going to happen anyway.

shGazingoutacrosstheSky.doc. Well, she'd already posted that one. Nor could she think of anything to come after it, and corrections seemed horribly tedious at that point, so she moved on.

Ah, shtatMS.doc, often confused with shttms.doc, the next document, as actually titled The Adventure of the Missing Suspect. Now "tatMS" was supposed to make it easier to remember, but with "ttms" right next to it (that standing for title-themed Mary-Sue, a story making fun of transporting one's self back in time) its usefulness was rather negated. She smiled and began to refresh her memory on what she had written so far...

000

The Adventure of the Missing Suspect

I had been looking through my files, trying to decide on which case to publish, when I came across this particular instance. Various aspects of it would keep it from ever reaching print, but the events had lodged so firmly in my mind that I felt compelled to set the facts down, even if no one shall read it. This is the result, words that will forever remain in the dark until, perhaps, a time will come when it will be better understood.

1

I was reading over the news one morning while my friend, Sherlock Holmes lay draped over his chair. There had been nothing of interest in the papers for several days, and I could tell Holmes was beginning to become restless. Just the other day we had had a call from a man with a relatively simple case, but I knew my companion was going to need some new challenge or he would begin to laps back into one of his darker moods. I try and do my best to make these times between easier on him, for he has a terrible capacity to do himself harm when he is brooding, but there is only so much I can do.

Just as I came to the end of the paper there was a knock at the door below, and I watched as my friend perked up his ears at the noise of footsteps coming up the stairs.

000

And then... the original character's all important entrance. Which the young woman had a basic idea on how it was to go, but had gotten quite stuck, quite a while ago. And she was still stuck. It wasn't for lack of planning, in fact, she had a little map of the crime scene drawn out and scribbled directions as to how it was carried out and what clues were thus left behind. She even had a great wealth of knowledge stored in her memory about the characters, their motives, their ensuing actions, and most of the plot (except the very ending) all planned out in her mental map of the story. But every time she looked at the phrase "...at the noise of footsteps coming up the stairs," BAM! All the ideas jumped out the window quick as lightning, and she couldn't think of _anything_ to write next.

She sighed and popped a sunflower seed into her mouth, a small back of salted in-shell seeds sitting near by, waiting for consumption in particularly trying times. Really, this was getting silly.

Not particularly fond of forced writing, since the outcome of such endeavors can be really quite hideous, she moved onto the next story. SHwhag.doc. Then she realized, this is the original beginning of the above story! Ack! And it's in the third person.

The young woman let her head sink down to rest on the edge of the keyboard. That was the last of the documented Holmes fics. She was just about to begin banging her had when she remembered, she'd accidentally skipped shttms.doc! This story had a bit more text to is, and as she was bored, she decided to "print preview" to see how many pages it took up. That's when she realized the introduction, which wasn't actually part of the story, was two-thirds of a page! She had suspected she should cut that down a bit. However, at this point, her will to write seemed thoroughly sapped, and she got up to take a break.

As she walked around her dorm halls, she ran her hand through her hair and said aloud to herself, "Damn, I'm have a bad case of writers block... I hope," rather surprising a random dorm mate who wasn't quite used to hearing her swear (which was a more often occurrence than some believed.)

Suddenly she was struck with an idea, what if she wrote a fic _about_ having writer block! Maybe it would even free up clog a bit. So she went back to her computer, chose an introductory story, and began to write about Sherlock Holmes fics and a nasty case of writers block. After a bit of thought, she decided she didn't need to write exactly how the idea came to her, just that it came and came in a manner that made sense.

After a good long while of continuous typing, she finally came to the end of the stories, and all that was left was the conclusion.

An ingenious closing statement.

She decided to save that story as: shwrtsblck.doc.


End file.
